Mapping Modern Architecture

Mapping Modern Architecture

Seventeen of the Wiener Brothers' most iconic buildings are featured in a new interactive driving tour of Shreveport

Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

“My father once told me,” recalls William “Bill” Wiener, Jr. in the documentary Unexpected Modernism: The Wiener Brothers Story, “that if he could design a house where you could drive your car into the kitchen, it would be perfect.”

The film, created in 2020 by Rational Middle Media and director Gregory Kallenberg, tells the remarkable story of Bill’s father and uncle, William and Samuel Wiener—two Shreveport architects of the twentieth century, whose shared body of work represents one of the densest collections of modern architecture on the globe. Though every major project the Wiener brothers pursued is documented in archives—some in the most prestigious architectural publications in the world—many of the buildings themmansions selves still grace the Shreveport cityscape. On May 19, 2022, Rational Middle Media—with support from the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism’s Office of Cultural Development’s Division of Historic Preservation and the National Park Service, US Department of the Interior—unveiled The Wiener Architecture Interactive Map as a companion to the documentary.

Serving simultaneously as an educational archive and a driving tour/pilgrimage guidebook, the website unexpectedmodernism.com (where you can also view the film) highlights seventeen of the Wiener Brothers’ most historically-significant structures, all of which are still standing. Each entry includes detailed histories and descriptions, and many of them feature original blueprints and design sketches—documents considered artifacts of American architectural history.

The map guides visitors through the evolution and range of the Wiener Brothers’ work, starting with their earliest projects in the youthful city of Shreveport, such as Feibleman’s Department Store (1923) and Kings Highway Christian Church (1925)—examples of the classical Beaux Arts and Romanesque architectural styles the brothers learned in school. In residential projects such as the Ed Wile House (1933) and the John Preston House (1935), viewers can study the brothers’ earliest ventures into European modernism, the initial products of their Grand Tour of Europe in the 1930s, which began their foray into approaching architecture as a functional and social art. And then there are their magnum opuses: Shreveport’s schools, the Pine Park Subdivision, and the brothers’ own on Longleaf Lane—works of art and innovation that were revolutionary for their time and continue to inspire architecture today.

In the Unexpected Modernism film, Karen Kingsley, Ph.D and Professor Emerita of Architectural History at Tulane University summed up the significance of the Wiener Brothers’ work in North Louisiana: “Shreveport is a surprising place to find such a group of interesting buildings and so many modern buildings. It gives us another vision of the South, and it is because these two architects made it their home, and they had a vision—not just about architecture, but about ways of life.” unexpectedmodernism.com